


kiss me, darlin'

by fishingclocks



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Drinking, M/M, eric is a sappy sweetheart when drunk, so basically cannon then, tooth-rotting fluff and self-indulgent pretty imagery basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3967264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishingclocks/pseuds/fishingclocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His thoughts are diverted from Alan when Eric comes across a grungy little corner pub. The sign, hanging crookedly and clumsily carved and painted, labels it as Ignatia’s Bosom, and a grin spreads across Eric’s face. He’s already in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiss me, darlin'

**Author's Note:**

> this was written listening to honey i'm good by andy grammer on loop for like seven hours, though i do not recommend listening to it while reading because that isn't exactly period relevant. but hey whatever's good for you, i just thought i'd let you know.

Technically, this could be enough to get Eric fired. He probably would be, in all honesty, if it weren’t for the fact that William T. Spears didn’t really seem to care what it was Eric did anymore.

This time period the mortals seem to have gotten themselves into is one of Eric’s favorites by far, he decides as he strides down the cobbled street. There’s a light rain falling, bringing with it a heavy cloud of fog. Street lamps strain to cast their light down through it, but the narrow road is still shrouded in a blanket of heavy darkness. The buildings surrounding him on either side seem to be hunched over, as brooding as the atmosphere settled here. Eric supposes that’s why he likes this period more than the others he’s seen. They embrace the darkness. It’s a nice change from the naïve blubbering and optimism he’s been faced with his entire career.

The streets smell, a stench rising from the storm drains and filth in alleyway and alcove, and Eric feels at home.

Eric hasn’t ever been much like other reapers, he knows that. His proud Scottish brogue and stronger build set him apart, to be sure. But the way he feels so… right among mortals- that is not something reapers are supposed to feel. Before Alan, though, Eric realizes that he’d never had this feeling of contentment. It was almost as if he’d been avoiding it, seeking comfort in between the legs of a girl from Registration and a bottle of strong whiskey.

Smiling, Eric shakes his head and chuckles under his breath. Alan’s taught him so many things about himself that he can’t even be surprised. If he’s honest with himself, it almost terrifies Eric how deeply Alan has woven his way into him. That skinny little recruit he’d been assigned to mentor so long ago, now come into his own as a full-fledged reaper. He’s intelligent and sensitive, independent to a fault, stubborn enough to even challenge Eric himself; and he’s the most beautiful thing Eric can imagine.

His thoughts are diverted from Alan when Eric comes across a grungy little corner pub. The sign, hanging crookedly and clumsily carved and painted, labels it as Ignatia’s Bosom, and a grin spreads across Eric’s face. He’s already in love.

`

It’s raunchy, and loud, and Eric hasn’t stopped smiling since he barged through the door. A crowd of the best mortals Eric has had the misfortune of meeting are gathered around him as he recounts a completely fictional retelling of his slaying of a boar from the pits of hell itself. None of them believe him, but they listen to his tale in amusement and throw comments in nonetheless.

“… and I swear to the devil himself that he comes at me, eyes a’flarin’ and hooves sparkin’ off the cobbles leavin’ hellfire in ‘is wake!” Eric shouts, slamming his foot down on the table where he stands above his audience, and raises his pint of cheap beer over his head. His audience roars, raising their own glasses to the air and cackling at their narrator’s misfortune.

“How’d’ya get outta there, ya lucky bastard?” a voice calls out from among the mob, and Eric laughs, his wide grin all teeth. The bartender, a boisterous woman whose prowess and condescending glare alone are enough to keep fights from breaking out among them, comes around with another round of full mugs, and Eric makes a grab at one, winking at her cheekily if only to see her roll her eyes exasperatedly. Turning back to his audience, Eric guffaws.

“You want to know how ah survived, then, aye?”

“Aye!” comes the resounding answer, and Eric feels it more than he hears it, the entire pub rattling and shaking with their exuberance.

“Ah’ll tell ya’, then!” Throwing himself from the table among them, beer sloshes over the rim of his new mug and he’s certain his suit is filthy from their hands clapping his shoulders and gripping at his sleeves. The alcohol is starting to get to his head, he guesses, because there’s an oddly heady feeling settling in his chest and mind. He’s been in the mortal world for too long. 

Eric ignores it. “I brandish mah blunderbuss, and fire o’the thing,” he roars, “and ah ken tha’ revolver ne’er ance fired the same after, come the force of it. Doon it falls, and melts inta shade as gloamin’ falls!”

Triumphantly, the crowd erupts into cheers and raucous laughter. They can’t understand a word that he’s saying, but by God if it isn’t rousing. 

 

Breaking apart into groups and couples, the crowd begins to dissipate, but a small group of mortals remain with Eric, most likely as intoxicated as he. They drink and laugh as though they are the best of friends, though in reality none of them knows the other’s name. One of the lads gets bold with a serving woman, which ends in his immediate eviction of the premises.

This, apparently, is hilarious, and those left behind laugh at their poor fellow’s misfortune. However, they are interrupted when a new member enters their circle. Her lips are painted a crimson red that Grelle would find ravishing, her ample bosom shown off quite spectacular in the slightly grimy dress that she wears with her head held high. Obviously, she is a mortal who is used to getting her way.

She seems be summing up their small gathering with a critical eye as she steps in their direction, and she seems to set her sights on Eric. Stepping up to him with her full hips swaying and chest shown off at a very flattering angle, she leans against the table they are gathered around and arches a delicate eyebrow. By mortal standards, and Eric’s if he’s honest, she is very beautiful, but all that comes to Eric’s mind is Alan and his habit of raising his eyebrow when Eric’s done something he deems ‘ridiculous.’ The thought makes Eric even more amicable than he was under the alcohol’s influence. He grins widely at the mortal woman, and she spares him a close-mouthed smile of her own.

The other men at the table are tripping over themselves to get her attention, and she grants it, but it’s clear even to Eric’s own drink-addled mind that her eyes are only for him. He decides that the look she’s wearing distinctly reminds him of a predator’s.

“What about you, love?” She directs the question at Eric, with that surmising smile. He’s about to reply when a hand grabs his shoulder, turning him around. Eric almost reacts violently, prepared to start an all-out brawl at the drop of a pin, but he’s met by a pair of familiar condescending blue eyes.

His demeanor immediately shifts, his smile softening around the edges and joyful wrinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes. “Alan, love o’mah heart, there y’are!” he proclaims, arms thrown wide to pull the smaller reaper into an embrace. Alan, however, evades it and instead gets a firm grip on one of Eric’s arms to keep him from falling over.

“There you are, Eric, you buffoon. Is this where you’ve been all of this time?” Alan asks exasperatedly. Eric recovers from his near-fall, unabashed. He manages to slip an arm around Alan’s waist and gestures broadly to the woman in front of them, now one of the only people left in the worn-down pub.

“Alan, love o’mah heart! Come o’er here, meet... Ah, lass, what’d ya’ say yer name was?”

When she looks at Alan, her eyes are glinting fiercely. “I didn’t,” she hisses, and stalks away. Alan doesn’t realize he’s been glaring until she’s out of his line of vision. Eric barely notices her leave, his intoxicated mind now completely focused on Alan. He’s leaning almost completely on Alan’s shoulders, hands drunkenly roving in a way Eric’s normally do only in teasing passes and winking innuendo.

He slaps Eric away, tsking, and shifts the weight of him onto his right shoulder, walking him out of the bar and attempting to keep a steady gait with the way Eric seems to be listing towards him.

Eric looks up at Alan, his eyes filled with a warmth that makes his breath hitch against his will. “Kiss me, darlin’,” Eric slurs, and Alan can barely hold back the fond, exasperated smile that itches at the corners of his mouth.

“You lug, don’t be ridiculous. Oof-you can barely stand on your own, you great big fool.”

Eric laughs, a great sound that echoes off the empty cobbled streets and out into the night. “Tha’s me, love. Nae, dance wi’ me!”

“No, Eric, sto- what are you doing?!”

`

With time, and more patience than Alan had thought he possessed, Eric has been brought back to his homely flat, safely away from the mortal world. He’s lying on his back, limbs spread haphazardly and falling off of his bed. Sometime along the way, Eric had shed his jacket, and managed to wrap it around Alan’s shoulders, the smaller reaper nearly swallowed up in the folds of the fabric. 

Eric’s face is flushed, his tanned cheeks rosy from drinking. Alan sits down next to him, tugging his hands through the sleeves of Eric’s coat until his hands can poke through. He brushes a strand of hair from Eric’s closed eyes, fallen from his long, endearing mess of cornrows and tangles. Alan lets his hands linger there, brushing lightly along crow’s feet from millennia of laughter and cheeky winking and over his crooked, angular nose. The only sound in the cluttered, warm bedroom is Eric’s snoring, and Alan can’t help the tightening in his chest as he looks down at the still form collapsed on the unmade bed. 

He’s ridiculous, Alan decides, pressing a kiss to Eric’s forehead. And Alan is ridiculous too, for having fallen so deeply in love with him.

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually pointless fluff and i am not sorry in the slightest.


End file.
